How To Set Up The Singularity

It's really not that hard to set up the singularity properly and keep it maintained. This guide will assume that you're doing it alone, either because you're the only engineer that signed up, or because everyone else decided they had better things to be doing. First off, you'll need to know what to bring to the singularity room with you, which you can aquire handily from around Engineering.

Required Items

6 x Gas/Phoron Tank. These are located in the Tank Storage Unit by "Dispensing" Phoron.

1 x Meson Scanners. This is to protect your eyes from the radiation once the singularity is active.

1 x Hardsuit and helmet.

1 x Oxygen tank (Internals).

1 x Breath mask.

1 x Wrench.

1 x Screwdriver.

1 x Cable Coil.

1 x Radiation suit and helmet.

Now that you have your supplies, it's time to get to work!

Note: Each of the following "Setting Up" sections can be performed individually or with additional team members. Order of operation does not matter as long as "Finishing Up" is done last.

Setting Up the Particle Accelerator (Engine)

Caution: Do not bump into the accelerator before it is secured with a wrench. If you knock a piece out of place, right-click > "Pull" it back and right-click > "Rotate" to put it back in its place.

Equip a wrench and click on each of the 6 sections of the engine, including the control box. You will see "You secure the external bolts" 7 times. Make sure the arrow on the control box is pointing down. This is often a pitfall of new engineers. Rotate it until it is.

Equip wires and click on each of the 6 sections of the engine, including the control box. You will see "You add some wires" 7 times.

Equip a screwdriver and click on each of the 6 sections of the engine, including the control box. You will see "You close the access panel" 7 times.

Click on the control box to open it's menu, then click on "Run Scan".

If you continue to see "Unable to detect parts", you missed something in steps 1-3.

Setting up the Singularity

Make sure your Oxygen tank and Breath mask are equipped and your Oxygen tank is "Open" or highlighted "On" in your HUD.

Use one of the two southern External Airlock exits to go outside the station.

(Optional) Enable your magboots' mag-pulse traction system so you don't accidentally slip into space or into something dangerous.

Click on each of the 4 Emitters to turn them on.

Caution: Do not walk in front of running emitters!

Walk around the outside of the inner circle and click on each of the 8 Field Generators, being careful to time your movement while passing in front of online Emitters.

Slowly, you will see a containment field surrounding the inner circle connected by the Field Generators.

Caution: Do not walk into, or even stand near to the containment field!

When the containment field has surrounded the entire inner circle, return inside the ship.

Finishing Up

Open the control box menu.

Make sure your Meson Scanners are equipped to prevent blindness and your rad-suit is equipped to prevent radiation poisoning.

(Optional) Enable your magboots' mag-pulse traction system so the singularity does not prevent you from walking away from the window.

Click "Toggle Power" to turn the power on.

Set Particle Strength = 2.

Walk down and look out the window. You will see a stream of purple particles shoot out from the Particle Accelerator, and after a few seconds, a small Singularity will appear.

The singularity will begin to grow. On the 2nd growth it gets large and pink in color.

Go back to the control box and click the minus to turn the power to 0. The result should be a large, pink, 5x5 singularity (see below).

Note: The singularity will fluctuate between 3x3 and 5x5 with power set to 0. It is safe to leave the accelerator on at power 0.

Singularity 1x1 (Stage 1)

Too small - Turn the PA to 2 until 5x5 obtained

Singularity 3x3 (Stage 2)

Poor size - Safer, but 5x5 provides more power

Singularity 5x5 (Stage 3)

Perfect size - Stop here

Singularity 7x7 (Stage 4)

Too large - Turn off the PA temporarily

Singularity 9x9 (Stage 5)

Too late - Call the emergency shuttle

Return to the SMESs

Check that the SMESs' "Stored Capacity" % is increasing and that "Input: Charging".

If the "Output Load" equals the "Output Level", it means that power is getting bottle-necked by that SMES. Click the far-right "+" to increase the Output Level until the Output Load stops increasing, then click the "+" a few more times to give the Output Load some breathing room.

Immediately set the Input Level higher than the Output Level you end up with in the above step.

The higher the Input Level, the faster the SMES's Stored Capacity will charge and be later useful for engine malfunctions.

Ensure that the engine APC is charging (the one located in the same room, currently Northeast of the engine beside the lone SMES).

Continued Upkeep

Every 15-ish minutes:

Make sure the singularity's size hasn't increased or decreased:

If the singularity's size is decreased, set the control box's Particle Strength = 2 and watch it until it grows to a normal size. Keep it on Particle Strength = 2 for a few more seconds (but not too long) to ensure its size is sustained. Remember to turn off the Particle Accelerator using the "Toggle Power" button when you're finished.

If the singularity's size is increased, immediately click "Toggle Power" on the control box to turn the engine OFF.

Every 60-ish minutes:

Refill the Gas Tanks:

Remove them from the Radiation Collector Arrays with a crowbar.

Click on a phoron canister to place the gas tank inside the canister.

Click on the canister to open the menu, and then click on the far-right "+" to increase the Release Pressure to its maximum.

Set the Release Valve to "Open" until the "Tank Pressure" shows the same number set in the step above.

Caution: Make sure you remember to set the Release Valve to "Close" when you're done, otherwise the canister will leak toxins.

Click "Remove Tank" and pick it back up, placing it back inside the Radiation Collector Array.

Repeat the above steps for each Gas Tank.

Note: Sometimes the singularity will cause EMP pulses if something is close to it and exposed to its radiation. These pulses can cause weapons to misfire and even disable the emitters. Keep an eye on it.

Optimization

Locking Access

You can lock access to the Radiation Collector Arrays and Emitters. This will stop an AI or anyone without management access from messing with them.

Click on your ID Card to put it in your hand, then click on each Radiation Collector Array or Emitter to lock them.

Use a Screwdriver on the control box to prevent immediate access to the control box's menu (unless the person has a screwdriver to fix it).

Close access to the Radiation Collector Arrays and the Particle Accelerator engine by clicking on the Shutter Control buttons located on the wall on either side of the engine.

Radiation Collector Array Optimization

Note: Read the Continued Upkeep section above to learn how to fill Gas Tanks, which will increase power output exponentially. This enables you to set the Input Level of each SMES to their maximum - 200,000.

Particle Accelerator Optimization

Upgrade the APC Power Cell

Locate the APC on the wall beside the lone SMES unit, in the same room as the Particle Accelerator.

Unlock it with your ID Card.

Click on your ID Card to put it in your hand, then click on the APC.

Set "Equipment" to "On", not "Auto".

This is to ensure that vital engineering equipment will be the last to fail should the APC's power cell run low. You can also turn off the lights to save power, although this is not really recommended as it makes it harder to see trespassers in engineering.

Use a crowbar on the APC to open it.

Click on the Power Cell to remove it.

Find another Power Cell laying around and replace the Power Cell you just removed.

Close the panel with the crowbar.

Check the APC menu to make sure it is on and working.

Lock the APC with your ID card.

Additional modifications

It is possible to wire the APCs directly to the main power ring. A good spot to do this is to the port end of engineering, near the bolted airlock. Lift the floor tiles and run a wire from there out into the maintenance tunnel and link it to the wire running through there. This allows you to charge APCs directly if somebody disables the SMES in engineering.

Another interesting point is that the APC in engineering will not charge from its own SMES unless this modification is made. Meaning that when the collectors are turned off, containment fails pretty quickly. With this quick modification, this gives you time to notice and fix the problem.

If you added the maximum amount of phoron to the collectors, this modification can generate ~6,000kW of power for the station. Enough to charge the 3 Engineering SMES and the 4 Solar SMES at 200kW input. Therefore, run a tiny bit of wire from the maintenance tunnels to each solar SMES, and set them each of them to an input/output of 90,000/3,000. This will ensure massive amounts of power reserves (enough to last hours with the engine off).

Turning off the Engine

Occasionally, bad stuff happens. Well, most of the time, bad stuff happens. Sometimes it is necessary to deactivate the engine as safely as possible because nobody can maintain it. Other times meteor showers and bombs endanger your containment machinery. Whatever the crisis, if you have followed the steps above it should be safe to simply turn the accelerator off. The engine will continue to generate power as the singularity starves and shrinks, so containment SHOULDN'T fail until the singularity is sufficiently small enough that it cannot move and pull stuff into it. However, the ikkle baby singularity will take a long time to die completely, leaving it exposed to potential suicidals jumping into it, giving the singularity energy to expand again. (Cool fact: Engineers provide a singularity with a lot more energy than you'd expect).

Sometimes it's a good idea to charge the SMES quickly (using the optional techniques above) and then turn off the engine safely until you need power again. This means that poor solo-engie can actually go do other stuff and leave engineering for a bit without inadvertently destroying the station.

As a weapon

The singularity is - along with massive phoron infernos and large scale bombings - one of the most brutal forces on the station. Dangerous enough when set free, it becomes a lag-inducing, shuttle-calling, indiscriminately murdering monstrosity when given a directed path by a Singularity Beacon, leaving nothing but debris, body parts and cold hard vacuum in its path. Perhaps the most dramatic way to end a round as a traitor, it can even eat the emergency shuttle itself, restricting escape to those few smart or lucky enough to grab EVA gear. Its a very effective weapon to use against assassination targets that commonly spend a lot of time in one area, such as scientists.

Setting the singularity free is not the easiest task to complete as a regular crew traitor, and you will get robusted in short order if you are caught. Generally speaking, all you need to do is disable the singularity containment field. This can be accomplished by deactivating the emitters, which is very hazardous due to the gravitational pull of the singularity, its radiation, and the hazards of the containment system itself. Alternatively, you can disable the engineering APC. If you are not an engineer and get identified doing this, you can expect to not make it onto the emergency shuttle alive. Another option is deactivating the collectors, as the Engineering APC cannot charge from the SMES, this form of sabotage probably won'tbe noticed and will likely be blamed on engineer incompetence. The easiest way to release the singularity is accessing the engine control console and turning power up to level 2. Keep in mind that the containment field is designed to tolerate short term power outages, so if anyone notices the power failure before the containment field fails, then your attempt will be thwarted. Tip: Try turning the PA up to 2 for a while until the Singularity gets huge, then turn off the collectors after a few minutes. If the Engineering staff hasn't wired the Singularity straight into the system, it should fail extremely fast and you'll have a 5x5 singularity running rampant around the station. Be careful to not get caught in the pull, though.

Directing the singularity to a target area - be it the emergency shuttle bay or the bridge - requires a singularity beacon and a screwdriver. Don't hang around after you plant it. Putting the beacon somewhere outside the station is usually your best bet to ensuring the singularity reaches its destination.